Friday, January 6, 2012

Homemade Holiday -- Part 2

The Dwyer Family Crest

My family has a love for our heritage.We keep misc. items around our homes that have special meaning to us and to those that have passed them onto us.For example, I have my great-grandfathers binoculars from when he was detective in Des Moines, IA and my father has the handcuffs.We profess to anyone who cares that we have firefighters, detectives, servicemen, Olympic athletes and hunters in our family.So, to the say the least, we are VERY proud of where we came from.

My mom and dad each have a tattoo of our family crest.My sister has the lion from it and some day VERY VERY soon, I will also be getting one of the lion.I already have one tattoo and as much as that teeny tiny one on my foot hurt, I’m not racing to get the lion placed on my spine at the base of my neck.It just sounds painful, but alas, that is where I would want it.I think I’m also scared that the tattoo artist won’t do as good as a job on my tat as he did on my sister's.Sorry I don’t have a picture of their tattoos, but trust me, they’re done very well.

But anyways, since my family is so proud, and I’m so cheap creative, I decided that my ‘rents needed a way to display the crest that would be visible as soon as they bring you to the house. And thus, here is the second installment of Homemade Holidays. So I made them an authentic family crest for Christmas.TSG was helpful as always.

Here’s how it breaks down:

1.Use piece of plywood that you erroneously purchased for another project and fill in any imperfections in the wood with wood filler and sand

See the imperfection?

.Print out a poster version of the crest and cut and tape it to size.Measure the size of the outline of the crest and meticulously draw same onto the ply wood and very carefully cut with a jig saw.Have the paper poster taken from you by your ‘ol so smart future hubby who lays the poster on top of the ply wood and cuts through everything (meanwhile, you’re trying very hard to hold it in place for him since jig saws vibrate the paper out of place every ½ inch)

The wood filler has been added and sanded and the shape cut out

3.Paint the now crest shaped cut out with white gloss paint and let dry.Repeat until the ply wood seems as smooth from paint as you prefer.We did two coats

4.Lay your chewed up poster print out on top of the painted crest and trace the lions outline using tracing paper.(This truly is my secret to intricate designs on our projects, yep, I cheat!)

a.Only trace the outline because you’ll need to paint the lion red all over and will go back for black outlining and shadows afterwards

This is a horrible picture, sorry, but this is the printed out poster prior to cutting/chewing it with the jigsaw

5.Paint in your lion in red and let dry

6.Touch up the white areas of the crest with paint where the graphite from the tracing paper smeared

7.Carefully outline your lion and add details for additional tufts of fur and shadowing.Be careful not to go overboard!A little goes a long way. This is also where you should paint in the black things (I have no idea what they're called) on the top corners and bottom center portion. I cut out a cardstock template for the longer piece and used a cap to crafting paint for the circles to trace onto my crest.

8.Add two eye lag screws and wire to the back so it can be hung up.Again, be careful not to get a screw that is too long and will come through the front of the board

VOILA!You’re done and now you’ve created a true family crest that replicates how crests and shields were made in ancient times.Well probably not, I’m sure they made them out of precious metals and intricate carvings, but you get the idea.